The present invention relates to the field of robotic and computer assisted surgery. It may also be used for many different types of microsurgery. For example, neurosurgery, spine, ear nose and throat surgery, microplastic surgery, and eye surgery.
As shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,943,914 to Morimoto et al., “Master/slave” robots are known in which a surgeon's hand input is converted to a robotic movement. This is particularly useful for motion scaling wherein a larger motion in millimeters or centimeters by the surgeon's input is scaled into a smaller micron movement. Motion scaling has also been applied in cardiac endoscopy, and neurosurgical target acquisition brain biopsy (with a needle) but only in one degree of freedom, for example only for insertion, not for a full range of natural hand movement directions, .e., not for all possible degrees of natural motion, Cartesian, spherical or polar coordinate systems or other coordinate systems.
Further, in the prior art, surgical robots have been purposefully designed to eliminate the natural hand tremor motions of a surgeon's hand which is about a 50 micron tremor which oscillates with some regularity. The common presumption is that tremor motion creates inaccuracies in surgery. Therefore, robots have been tested which entirely eliminate the surgeon's natural hand tremor. See “A Steady-Hand Robotic System for Microsurgical Augmentation” Taylor et al., International Journal Of Robotics Research, 18(12):1201–1210 December 199, and also see “Robotic-assisted Microsurgery: A Feasibility Study in the Rat” LeRoux etal., Neurosurgery, March 2001, Volume 48, Number 3, page 584.
Force reflectance sensing is also known in order to provide tactile or haptic feedback to a surgeon via an interface. See “Connecting Haptic Interface with a Robot” Bardofer et al., Melecon 200—10th Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference, May 29–31 2000, Cyprus.
However, in testing, all of these techniques ultimately slow down the actual surgery especially when performed in conjunction with a microscope for viewing the operation. The procedure time is typically increased by two to three times. See Robotic-assisted Microsurgery: A Feasibility Study in the Rat” cited above.
Additionally, there is a major design issue regarding the choice between locating the surgeon in his normal operating position about the patient's head or locating the surgeon more remotely from the normal operating position at a terminal with a joystick and viewing screen for example. The prior art elects to locate the surgeon remotely from the traditional operational position about the head and to use monitors to display the operation to the surgeon.